


Wishbone Wednesdays

by moonix



Series: Foxglove Court [2]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - Flower Shop & Tattoo Parlor, Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, Autumn, Cats, Flirting, M/M, Make-up, Meet-Cute, Summer, Tattoos, feelgood, minimal angst, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-26 18:42:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15669027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonix/pseuds/moonix
Summary: Attraction is a slow creature for Neil. It sneaks up on him over time and winds him tighter and tighter in its coils until he’s smothered in it.In which Andrew is a florist with magic hands, Neil is a tattoo artist with a tragic past, and everyone else is busy wooing Renee at the coffee shop.





	Wishbone Wednesdays

**Author's Note:**

> This is my 30th TFC fic on AO3, which I am posting in celebration of my friend Lio's 30th birthday! They are making some art for this fic as well, so I will update this with the links and reblog them on my [Tumblr](http://annawrites.tumblr.com/) as soon as they post it :)
> 
> Many many thanks to my fantastic beta, Scoop (zombiesolace), who is always such a delight to work with and kicks my butt about my overlong sentences. <3
> 
> Warnings: brief mentions of scars/self-harm scars, some allusions to Neil’s past and his father and his mother’s death, but it’s very vague.
> 
> This piece is complementary to Foxglove Fridays, you can read them separately or together.

i.

“Hello?”

The shop looks deserted. Neil lets the door close quietly behind him and steps up to a display table with sunflowers on it, drawn in by their bright, cheeky bursts of colour against the greenish-grey gloom that tangles with the evening like spools of thread. His newest tattoo still burns like actual barbed wire around his throat and he swallows, resisting the temptation to touch it. Thea’s done a good job on it and if he gets it infected on her watch she’ll have his literal hide.

There’s a bit of banging and scraping coming from a back room and then a man steps out, carefully holding onto a wriggling orange cat.

“Don’t,” he snaps at the cat, low and angry, and she cheerfully headbutts him in response, her purr loud enough that Neil can hear it from across the room. She has a cast on one leg and lets herself be deposited in a basket behind the counter, playfully sticking her front paws out after her human when he turns around to glare at Neil.

“What do you want.”

“Um,” Neil says. “Flowers?”

“No,” the man says, glaring over the counter. He’s smaller than Neil but considerably broader, and Neil notes the tattoos peeking out of his collar with interest. Foxgloves, he thinks. Probably. He doesn’t know all that much about flowers.

“No?” Neil echoes, revolving on the spot. “Shame. I was under the impression that you had rather a lot of those.”

“What kind,” the man grits out. His cat chirrups at him as if reprimanding him for being rude and Neil can feel his mouth twitch in amusement. There is something light and soothing about the shop with its casual air of abandonment, the greenery crawling over every available surface, the three empty mugs on the counter, ringing the wood with coffee stain moons.

“I don’t know,” Neil says and shrugs. “Something bright. A small, bright… something.”

The man who doesn’t have a name tag grunts and walks away. Neil waits curiously, tapping his fingers on the rim of a bucket and squeezing his eyes at the cat in a gentle greeting. She blinks back and curls herself up tighter in her basket, flicking her ear at a dust mote.

The man comes back with a handful of small red flowers, their stems glistening wet. He squints at Neil, then tugs a few berry sprigs out of a vase without looking and grabs some yellow flowers from another; carelessly throwing together a random assortment of bright… somethings.

Neil blinks and there’s a bouquet shoved in his face, small and beautiful and appealing, so much neater than the process made it look at first. He’s pretty sure there was some kind of magic involved in these just now.

“That’s perfect,” he blurts out. “How much for it?”

“Whatever,” the man grumbles, shaking the bouquet until Neil takes it. It must be nearly closing time, Neil thinks; five on a Friday night, no wonder this guy is so grumpy. He was probably just about to clock out.

He pulls out a crumpled bill and puts it on the counter, hoping it will be enough. The man doesn’t even look at it, just continues to glare at him with his arms crossed in front of his chest. Neil sucks his lip piercing into his mouth and nestles the flowers into the crook of his elbow, rolling his shoulder to ease some of the itching around his throat.

“I like your knuckle tats,” he says, motioning at the man’s hands. “Where’d you get them done?”

“Next door.”

“Oh,” Neil smiles. “I just started working there last week. Guess we’ll probably see each other around.”

The man just glares through him, jaw working, and Neil looks down at his beautiful flowers and decides to come back next week and see if he’s feeling more talkative then. And if not, he figures there’s always the cat.

ii.

The bell over the door tinkles merrily as Neil’s last customer of the day leaves. Neil cracks his knuckles and gets up to stretch, his back protesting at the strain of a full day’s work.

“Nice job on the dragon,” Thea tells him, patting his shoulder so hard he nearly falls over. “That was a tricky bit of work.”

“I enjoyed it,” Neil says. “Well. The guy was an ass, but the tattoo was fun.”

“That’s the spirit,” Thea grins. Neil salutes her and starts cleaning up his work bench. His hands are chalky and dry from the constant disinfecting and the gloves, and he takes care to rub some cream on them before he grabs his bag and his sketchbook.

“You sure you don’t want help locking up?” he asks Thea. She merely flaps her hand at him, poring over some designs at her desk with a pair of nerdy circular reading glasses perched on her nose. Neil shakes his head and smiles at her, then heads out into the balmy summer evening.

He walks next door, a breeze nipping at his heels. According to Thea the owner of the flower shop is called Andrew, though she didn’t know the cat’s name. Neil bought some treats for her this morning, because he figures ingratiating himself with the cat might be an easy way to get on Andrew’s good side.

Andrew is slumped behind the counter today, engrossed in a hefty library book. His cat is curled up in her basket, though she lifts her head and chirrups when Neil enters. Andrew blinks sleepily first at her, then at Neil, like coming out of a daze.

“Hello,” Neil says. “I was wondering if I could draw some of your flowers? I’m supposed to come up with a new design for a customer, but I haven’t really been inspired yet.”

Andrew narrows his eyes at him. For a moment, Neil is sure that he’s going to say no. Then he suddenly yawns, rubs a hand over his eyes, and goes back to his book.

“Right,” Neil mutters to himself. “Taking that as a yes…”

He walks around the little shop for a bit, studying the different plants. Andrew keeps reading, though his cat is lazily watching Neil circle around the buckets and display tables like she’s making sure he’s not getting up to any mischief.

Neil is drawn to a bundle of what he thinks are tiger lilies. They are soft, creamy yellow and peach, blushing pink at the tips like a sunset. Their distinct markings are only faintly reminiscent of actual tiger stripes, but he can sort of see where the name comes from. He sits cross-legged on the floor and sketches out some of the blossoms and leaves, letting himself get lost in the process. A few more customers come in and are reluctantly served by Andrew, who doesn’t seem to be very interested in making money and never once smiles. As soon as they leave, Andrew disappears in the back, then checks all the doors on his way out as if to make sure they’re still locked.

Neil finishes his drawing and buys one of the tiger lilies before he leaves.

iii.

Friday finds Neil back at the shop, asking for another one of Andrew’s magic bouquets.

Andrew reluctantly arranges it around three of the tiger lilies. The rest of the flowers are a quick, cheeky fade-out from orange to pink, and Andrew whips them in shape with expert fingers as Neil watches, strangely mesmerised.

“What’s the cat’s name?” he asks when Andrew is done.

Andrew squints at him as he holds out the bouquet, but Neil refuses to take it until he gets an answer.

“Pepper,” Andrew mutters at last.

“Cute,” Neil grins. “She not around today?”

“No,” Andrew says.

“Well, tell her I said hello,” Neil supplies cheerfully. “How much for the flowers?”

“What’s yours,” Andrew bites out, ignoring Neil’s question about the price. “Name,” he clarifies belatedly. Neil gets a feeling he only ever says a fraction of the words on his mind because he forgets that others can’t actually read his thoughts.

“Neil. You’re Andrew, right?”

Andrew huffs and shrugs like having a name is the greatest inconvenience he can imagine at this moment. Neil can somewhat relate.

He hands over some money and hopes it’s enough for the beautiful bouquet. It’s dumb that the flowers are just going to end up lying in the dirt and rotting, with no one there to see, but Neil wants to leave behind some sort of mark that Mary isn’t yet forgotten. He glances at his watch – he’s here on his lunch break today, because he’ll be working late again.

“Better be off,” he says, still dawdling by the counter. “See you next week, Andrew. I’ll get a complete sentence out of you yet.”

He laughs at Andrew’s unimpressed glare and picks up the miniature sunset wrapped in dark green paper, almost too beautiful an offering for the dead.

iv.

It becomes a routine. Neil throws the full force of his charm at Andrew, who seems to prove stubbornly resistant to it until Neil catches him checking out his ass one day. He’s bent over a bucket of fat red peonies, watching an ant crawl along the periphery of a petal, while Andrew is assembling his latest Friday bouquet over by the counter. Neil glances over his shoulder to ask something and Andrew isn’t quite quick enough in dropping his keen golden gaze down to the mess of flowers in his hands.

“Like the jeans?” Neil grins, wiggling his legs. He borrowed them from Allison – they both have thick thighs and a penchant for plum purple, though he’s had to roll up the hems several times because Allison has legs for days and Neil prefers not to have his ankles encased in fabric.

Andrew scowls down at a poor, innocent daisy. Its petals are a simmery, bonfire yellow darkening at the centre to a shade akin to dried blood. Andrew called it a “Black-eyed Susan” when Neil asked, which was macabre enough to make Neil laugh.

“I need more yarrow,” Andrew tells him, pointing at a green vase on the table by Neil’s hip without looking up. Neil eyes the tiny red and yellow flowers, nestled close together in clusters, and pulls some out. They smell like honey and summer evenings spent outside.

“And some of the Scarlet Sage,” Andrew adds. “Two rows down, three to the right.”

Neil follows his instructions and finds a vase of fluted red flowers, a startling pop of colour between the muted pinks and whites around them.

“So, Thea and I – you know Thea, she owns Black Ink – anyway, we’re going to Waffle House later to get food. I was thinking, maybe you want to join us?”

Andrew pauses, gaze snagged on the yarrow and sage in Neil’s outstretched hand.

“Are you seriously inviting me to tag along on your Friday night date,” he asks tonelessly, fingers twitching around the unfinished bouquet.

“Oh,” Neil says. “No, the flowers aren’t- I gotta drop those off first. It’s not a date, Thea’s like ten years older than me and I’m pretty sure she’s courting the girl from the coffee shop, the one with the rainbow hair. Renee?”

Andrew stares at him for another moment before finally taking the flowers and tying them into the bouquet. He holds it up for Neil to inspect, and it’s another tiny feat of magic contained in the breadth of his hand.

“Thank you,” Neil says. “Waffle House, around seven. Think about it, okay? I’ll be back in a few hours.”

He pays for the flowers. Andrew gathers the leftover scraps into a heap on the counter and sweeps them into a trash bag, a small furrow between his brows. Neil leaves him to his brooding and walks to the nearby bus stop – he still doesn’t own a car since his old one broke down. He should really look into that, but every time he has a free afternoon that isn’t taken up by a trek to the cemetery or catching up on chores, Allison pops up out of nowhere and ropes him into doing something together. It’s like she has a sixth sense for when Neil has nothing to do, or maybe it’s just because she talks to Thea a lot. Allison attracts gossip like soda attracts wasps in August, and Thea knows the dirt on everybody who’s left in this half-abandoned town South of nowhere.

When Neil comes back from the cemetery, the flower shop is closed.

v.

August, scorching hot and studded with wasps, segues into September with barely a drop in temperature.

Neil gets a visit from Matt and Dan, who helped him first find his footing when he was fresh out of his last FBI interrogation and starting his new life in Witness Protection. They set up camp at the only bed and breakfast in town, which is basically just a rented room in old Mrs Beauchamps’ house. Neil shows them around and tells them some prime gossip he heard from Thea at work, and then they all pile into the back of Allison’s hot pink pick-up truck and drive to the pumpkin fair in the next town over.

There’s a big bonfire and Neil sits on a hay bale off to the side, eating his hot dog and watching Matt and Dan dance and laugh and muck around. Allison disappears for a bit, then plops down next to him with her cheeks slightly flushed and a minuscule smear of lip gloss on the corner of her mouth. She looks pristine otherwise – criminally short denim skirt, intricately embroidered cowboy boots, a cute little fringed vest and hair glossy like the pages of a magazine.

“Here,” she says, shoving a caramel apple at him.

“Were you making out with someone behind the barn?” Neil grins. “Like a teenager? For shame, Allison.”

“Don’t be such a fun sponge, Mr I-just-have-very-high-standards,” Allison huffs, flicking him on the forehead. Neil laughs and leans out of her reach.

They share the caramel apple and then a plate of s’mores that are way too sticky and sweet. Neil has a cup of cider and a few sips of Dan’s beer and enough lemonade to make his mouth sore, and by the end of the day his head’s spinning from the sun and the sugar and the absurdness of going to a fair, just for fun, with people whose company he actually enjoys.

There are sunflowers tacked to the booths and fastened to the barn and they make Neil think of Andrew in his little shop. He imagines him here, with muck on his boots and straw in his hair, chocolate from the s’mores on his chin and his customary grumpy look on his face.

Neil hides his smile behind his hand.

vi.

Neil’s resolve to keep his head down and stay out of trouble cracks in the second week of September, when one of their customers at the shop starts spewing abuse at Thea for refusing to give him a swastika tattoo.

Thea stays cool and steady, but her pierced eyebrow is arched in obvious disgust. Neil quickly finishes tidying up his workbench. The snap of his gloves draws the customer’s attention for a split second, long enough for Neil to step between him and Thea.

“She said no, you foul, entitled prick,” he says. “So move your crusty ass and get the fuck out of here. We don’t serve Nazis.”

“Neil,” Thea says sharply, but the guy has already lunged for him. Neil just about manages to duck his grabbing hands, but still gets an elbow to the face for his trouble. The blow knocks him backwards and into the counter hard enough to make him see stars for a moment.

By the time Thea has kindly escorted the guy outside, Neil is back on his feet and trying to shake off the momentary feeling of dizziness. Thea grabs him and steers him behind the counter, forcing him to sit down.

“Yikes,” is all she says, inspecting his face.

“I’m not concussed,” Neil assures her. “Am I bleeding?”

“Split lip,” Thea confirms grimly. “And your eye’s looking pretty busted. You should probably get that checked out.”

“It’s fine,” Neil says. “I’ve had worse.”

Thea’s mouth thins into a narrow line. She gets him an ice pack from the mini fridge in her office and dabs at his lip with disinfectant, then makes him drink a can of coke, “for the shock.”

“I’m fine,” Neil insists, playing with the tab on the can. “I was going to do the inventory today, so…”

“ _You_ are going to go home and lie down,” Thea hisses. “You’re an idiot, by the way. He would’ve just left once he was done with his temper tantrum, and you basically asked him to punch you in the face with that stuff you said to him.”

“He had no right to treat you like that,” Neil mutters. His lip throbs at every word.

“He had no right to clock you in the eye either, but he still did it,” Thea snaps, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “Next time just let me handle it. If push comes to shove, out of the two of us, I’m the one who can actually defend herself.”

“I _can_ defend myself,” Neil protests, but wilts quickly. “Alright, fine. I’ll try.”

Thea rolls her eyes and lets him be. She has another customer scheduled for today and goes into the back to prepare her station, and Neil sits behind the counter with his ice pack and his coke and twists the swivel chair from side to side, making it creak. His three o’clock check-up comes in, the nice old librarian who wanted a rainbow tattooed on her arm in support of her gay son. Neil assures her it’s all healing nicely and sells her some more of the expensive cream, and then Thea kicks him out for good and tells him not to come back until his eye no longer looks like he’s half demon.

Which, technically, he kind of is – but Neil’s not going to think about his father today.

Neil stands outside in the parking lot and revolves slowly on the spot, not sure what to do with his unexpectedly free afternoon. He checks his phone, but not even Allison has called him this quickly, so he tucks it back into his bag and walks over to Bee’s Flowers.

Andrew is napping behind the counter, but he startles awake when a loudly meowing Pepper comes waddling out of the back room to greet Neil. He glares at them, then at his empty coffee mug, and finally at a stray burr stuck to his shirt.

Neil crouches down to greet Pepper, feeling oddly like he’s just come home.

“Did you never learn how to duck?” Andrew asks him grumpily, twitching his hand in the general direction of Neil’s face.

“I did,” Neil says deadpan. “In fact, I was in the process of ducking, and that’s how I got an elbow to the face. You could say I was _too_ good at ducking.”

“You are a disaster,” Andrew mutters under his breath and comes out from behind the counter to scoop up his wayward cat. She mews in displeasure, but still lets him carry her into the back. He emerges again a moment later with a fresh ice pack that he throws at Neil with no comment before picking up a book and hunkering back down behind the counter.

Neil finds himself a cosy spot on the floor by the window and pulls out his sketchbook.

vii.

“Hello? Andrew?”

It’s Friday and Neil just finished up work. The air outside is saturated with a fine mist of drizzle and his hair – freshly dyed last night – is curling every which way, seething against the moisture. He looks like a bedraggled Medusa when he catches his reflection in the window glass.

Bee’s Flowers is open but deserted.

Neil walks around aimlessly, then sticks his head through the open doorway behind the counter.

“Andrew?”

There’s a noise inside the nearest room and Neil shuffles closer, peering inside. It’s a desolate little office, shelves mostly empty except for two massive cat beds and some blankets, and a single stack of books. Andrew’s head appears from behind a sturdy oak desk. He looks pale and uncharacteristically frazzled.

“Hey,” Neil says. “Everything okay?”

“Pepper,” Andrew croaks. Neil hurries around the desk and spots the ginger cat slumped on the ground, breathing laboured and eyes glassy. Two puddles of catsick are nearby, one soaking the knee of Andrew’s jeans.

“Shit,” Neil says. “Is there a vet still open? Do you have a car?”

Andrew nods, then looks down at his hands. They are shaking visibly, and Neil’s stomach clenches.

“I can drive you, if you want,” he offers. There’s a transport basket on the shelf behind him and he tugs it out, lining it with one of the fleecy blankets. Andrew picks Pepper up with gentle, careful hands and helps her inside the basket, then he shoots to his feet and grabs his keys, swaying at the sudden motion.

He locks and unlocks his door three times while Neil carries Pepper over to the rundown old car that Andrew indicated. The drizzle has thickened to rain by the time Neil pulls them out of the parking lot, Andrew in the passenger seat with Pepper’s basket clutched in his lap. The knuckles on his hands are starkly white peaks of tension.

They have to drive to Knoxville because the only vet in the vicinity is already closed for the weekend. Neil goes as fast as he dares in the rain. The roads are deserted but dangerously slippery, and Andrew’s car looks and sounds like it should be headed directly to the scrapyard. Andrew opens the latch on the basket and keeps a hand in Pepper’s orange fur.

The waiting room is nearly empty when they arrive at the only clinic still open, business winding down near closing time. Neil sits on a creaky plastic chair with Pepper while Andrew paces holes into the floor. Finally an attendant fetches Pepper and Andrew, leaving Neil to stare at the door that swallowed them up. He tries to scrape the sour taste of worry from his tongue and settles in to wait.

Last time he was at this clinic was when his own cat, named Princess Peach by Matt, had jumped out through his skylight, walked across the roof to the next building over, and gone exploring in someone else’s apartment. Unfortunately for all parties involved, Neil’s neighbour has two dogs – to Peach’s credit, they both looked worse than she had after her unexpected visit.

Neil wonders if Peach and Pepper would get along. Peach is feisty and rough-mannered where Pepper seems mostly lazy and good-natured. Perhaps they could work something out.

Andrew comes back empty-handed.

“More tests,” he says, clipped. Neil nods and, on impulse, offers his hand palm-up on the armrest between them.

Andrew looks at it for a long moment, then he lifts a trembling hand and slides them together, comparing the length of their fingers. Where Andrew’s palm is wide and calloused, Neil’s is narrow and long. His skin is olive, Andrew’s is pale and freckled. Andrew has a lot of moles, dotted around like secret constellations, and small scabs and cuts from working with his plants. There are flowers tattooed over his wrists and the backs of his hands – purple ones that look like open mouths, entwined with soft pink and yellow starbursts.

“What are these?” Neil asks quietly, tracing their shapes with his fingertips.

Andrew looks down at their joined hands and swallows, the click of his throat strangely loud in the hush of the waiting room.

“Wishbone flowers,” he says, pointing first at the purple ones, then to the pink ones. “And resurrection lilies.”

Neil squeezes his hand in understanding, and they fall silent until Andrew is called back in.

He comes back with Pepper in his arms, peering out of her basket with wide pupils and ears flicked back but otherwise calm.

“She needs antibiotics,” Andrew says shakily. “But she will probably be fine.”

“That’s good,” Neil breathes. “Come on, let’s go home.”

viii.

Pepper’s recovery is speedy, and Andrew is back to his old self in no time.

“How are things going with coffee shop girl?” Neil asks Thea on a Wednesday when they’re having lunch on the kerb outside the shop. Thea must have picked up some bagels past their expiry date from Renee, still good to eat but not to serve at the coffee shop. She’s is sharing the loot with Neil along with a giant pot of hummus and some olives and dried tomatoes that Neil is staying far away from.

“Mm, the competition is fierce,” Thea says, licking a smear of hummus off her thumb.

“Yeah?”

“Well, there’s Jean – he’s the French guy who works at Jeremy’s bakery,” Thea hums. “And Allison, of course.”

Neil chokes a bit on his bagel.

“Allison? Reynolds?”

Thea grins and plops an olive in her mouth.

“Yep. She’s always over there, flirting and bringing gifts,” she chuckles.

“She never told me,” Neil huffs. “I thought she was still hung up about Seth.”

Thea shrugs and finishes her bagel, then stretches her long limbs. She has geometric shapes tattooed all up her arms, several piercings, biceps as big as Neil’s thighs, and wears lipstick in nocturnal shades of black and dark purple. Ever since Neil arrived in this shithole town, she’s been kind of like an older sister to him. Without her he probably wouldn’t have ended up staying.

“You should ask Andrew to make you a bouquet for Renee,” Neil says, picking at the sesame seeds on his bagel. “Bet that would get you ahead in the competition.”

“Yeah? How’d you figure?”

Neil shrugs and squirms a bit.

“I don’t know, they’re just really nice. He’s good at his job, I guess.”

“Uhuh, right,” Thea teases. “He’s also very handsome.”

“Is he?” Neil asks casually and scrunches up his nose. He hasn’t really been thinking about it – or he has, just in different ways than what Thea implies. Like how serene and focused he looks when he’s choosing the right flowers for Neil’s bouquet, or the little marks and scratches and discolorations on his hands as they work, or the little tuft of hair that always seems to be sticking up at the back of his head no matter how many times he runs his hand over it.

Attraction is a slow creature for Neil. It sneaks up on him over time and winds him tighter and tighter in its coils until he’s smothered in it.

“You should ask him out,” Thea suggests coyly. “How long has it been since you went on a date? Oh, sorry, I meant _the_ date. The only one you ever went on. That date.”

Neil sighs. He really shouldn’t have told her that. The thing about Thea is that she has a way of making you feel at ease, like you can trust her with all your secrets, except then she turns around and gleefully rubs them in your face every chance she gets.

At least she steers clear of the serious stuff. Neil’s only told her the bare bones of his life Before, and she’s seen some of the scars while doing Neil’s latest tattoos – the spider-web on his shoulder, the fox and rabbit on his chest, the smoke curling up from a cigarette on his hipbone. But she hasn’t pried about that, and Neil is grateful for it.

“Maybe you should buy him a rose,” Thea jokes, nudging him with her elbow and nearly bowling him over in the progress.

“Very funny,” Neil says. But the idea lodges itself in his head and won’t let go.

ix.

The rose goes over about as well as Neil expected.

He leaves Andrew standing in the middle of his shop, holding a beautiful, dark purple, thorny specimen and seething at the fact that Neil just tricked him into accepting it. It’s a good look on him, and Neil is distracted by the memory of it for the rest of the day, feeling giddy and silly and skittish all afternoon.

The next day, Andrew shoves a small orange and pink rose at him with a look of utmost disgust on his face.

“For you,” he says. “Now fuck off.”

Neil can’t help it, he laughs. Their fingers brush together as he takes the rose, and Andrew quickly shoves his hands in his pockets, jingling his keys. Neil notices that his sleeves are pushed up today, revealing the flowers on his wrists and a pale, faded rainbow of scars all along the length of his arms. There’s a bee tattooed just beyond the last one, in the crook of Andrew’s elbow, with an arc of tiny moon phases, and Neil wonders at the significance of it.

Neil makes a show of lifting the rose to his face and inhaling. It smells grassy and sweet.

“Does that mean you like me?” Neil asks, letting a small grin nestle in the corner of his mouth.

“I hate everyone,” Andrew grumbles. “You most of all. Now get out of my shop.”

Neil offers to design him another tattoo. Andrew doesn’t say yes, but he also doesn’t say no, so Neil takes the bouquet of sunflowers that Andrew’s already prepared for him and tucks his rose behind his ear before exiting the shop.

x.

Neil sits in the back of the bus and taps his pencil against a blank page in his notebook. He draws Andrew’s arm from memory, with the existing tattoos and the scars, and tries to come up with something that would suit him.

Just as he’s done sketching the outline of a key, the bus comes to a shuddering halt at the side of the road. Rain slides down the steamed-up windowpanes. He adds some more detail to the key and draws a small version of it on the sketch of Andrew’s arm, in the same spot as the bee tattoo on his other arm, like some sort of echo.

The speakers crackle and the bus driver announces that the bus has broken down. They can either walk the rest of the way or wait for a replacement bus, which could take a while.

Neil secures his sketchbook in his bag and walks.

The cemetery is technically not in use anymore, the people buried there long since turned to dust and forgotten. Neil found it on a nightly drive when he still had his car and decided it was the perfect resting place for his mother’s memory, since her ashes have been scattered in the ocean and her bones buried on the beach.

He picks his way through stubble fields and underbrush, damp and sweating, the sunflowers burning his palms with their rough stems. The rose behind his ear is drooping. He passes the first row of withered gravestones and finds the place he marked with a simple rock. He buried the last piece he had of her here – an old roadmap she used when they went for one of their drives, escaping the horror house in Baltimore for a few hours. He’s often thought about planting flowers or herbs in the soil to have something more lasting than the bouquets, but he thinks his mother would have preferred it like this: simple, impermanent, unnoticeable.

The sunflowers are a strange lick of colour in the otherwise drab place. Just like that, Neil doesn’t want to be here anymore. He stands up and turns his back on his mother, trying to shake loose the ghost of her in his head, telling him to run and never look back just before his father killed her.

She can haunt the old roadmap for all he cares.

xi.

Andrew gets the key inked on his arm. Neil doesn’t usually think of his job that way, but it’s strangely intimate, being allowed to mark Andrew’s skin with his own design. He doesn’t flinch or complain once, and Neil gets lost in the intricate work, neither of them talking until he’s finished.

“I assume you know how to care for it,” Neil says, wrapping the new tattoo snugly in cling film. “Do you need any products?”

“No,” Andrew says, looking at his arm for the first time since Neil started, his gaze snagging once again on the scars. “Maybe some scar cream.”

Neil nods and walks over to shelf by the counter where they keep their products. They have some small tubs of expensive scar cream at the top, and Neil holds one up for Andrew to inspect.

“This one?”

“Yes,” Andrew says. “How much for the tattoo?”

Neil shrugs and loops his hand through the air in an approximation of what Andrew does when Neil asks him about the price of his Friday flowers. Andrew glares at him, pulls out his wallet and drops a wad of cash on the counter.

“I was joking,” Neil huffs. “It’s like, half this much.”

He takes some of the bills, but Andrew shoves the rest at him too and grabs his scar cream. He turns around and walks to the door, and Neil resists the temptation to call after him, aware that Thea is watching him like a hawk.

xii.

“Are you coming?” Andrew says.

“Coming where?”

“Car,” Andrew grunts. “I’m driving you, idiot.”

It’s really not necessary – the bus isn’t going to break down two weeks in a row, and Neil doesn’t mind walking, but Andrew looks determined. So they drive to the cemetery in Andrew’s ramshackle old car, and Neil wonders why he’s never told Andrew about where he goes on Fridays before. This week’s bouquet is safely encased by Neil’s knees. Storm clouds continue to swell like bruises in the sky and the radio pitter-patters in the background, too quiet to really make out individual words. Neil gives Andrew directions and Andrew parks his car on a stretch of dirt by the side of the road.

“Do you want to wait here?” Neil asks, fretting at the sprigs of rosehip. “I won’t be long.”

“Fine,” Andrew says. He rolls down the window and lights a cigarette, blowing the smoke through the crack.

“Can I have one of those?” Neil asks. Andrew hands one over along with the lighter. Neil pulls on it enough to get it going, then takes it with him when he climbs outside and finds his way through the shrubbery. Last week’s sunflowers are still putting up a brave front, so he tucks the fresh flowers alongside them. Then he takes a deep drag of the cigarette and stubs it out on the rock before dropping it between the bouquets.

“Not your favourite brand, I know,” he mutters. “But I’m sure you’ll make do. You always did.”

He waits until the smell of the smoke has faded. The air is thick and heavy, scented with ozone, and the first fat drops of rain start to fall as Neil hurries back to the car. Andrew glances at him and floors the gas pedal, taking them away from the ghostly rustles of the graveyard at high speed.

They pick up a box of cinnamon doughnuts and two coffees from Renee’s, and when Andrew asks where to drop him off Neil tells him his address. Sharing information like this still sends a jolt through his stomach every time, but he knows by now that Andrew lives above Bee’s Flowers, so he figures it’s only fair that Andrew knows where he lives, too.

Lightning veins the sky and thunder cracks like bones. The downpour is so thick Neil can barely see past the window anymore. He’s going to be soaked just from running to the door of his apartment building.

He looks at Andrew.

“Do you want to come up? Meet my cat?”

Andrew blinks.

“Cat?”

“Yeah,” Neil says, grinning nervously. “Did I never tell you? Her name’s Princess Peach, but don’t let it fool you. She’s a demon from hell.”

Andrew grabs the box of doughnuts and opens the door.

As Neil predicted, they are both dripping wet by the time they enter Neil’s apartment. Peach greets them at the door, giving Neil a piece of her mind about leaving her alone all day, never mind that he does it every Friday. Somehow she’s managed to open his underwear drawer again, and several pairs of his briefs have been liberally distributed across the apartment. He even finds one on the kitchen counter and grabs it, flushing when he feels Andrew watching him.

“Told you,” Neil mutters. “Demon from hell. You hear that, Peach?”

Peach lies smugly on top of his last pair of underwear and won’t be moved. Neil lets her be, stuffs the rest back in the drawer, and makes a fresh pot of coffee in his tiny kitchen, hitting his head on the slanted roof like he does every time.

They take turns in the bathroom to shed their wet clothes and change into dry ones. Neil’s sweatpants are criminally tight on Andrew’s hips and ass, and he tries not to stare too much. Since the small sofa is taken up by Peach, they migrate to Neil’s bed instead, lying top to toes and munching on doughnuts, the window cracked open to let in the wet air and exchange it for smoke from a shared cigarette.

Peach trots over after a while and, miraculously, decides to curl up next to Andrew.

“Huh,” Neil says. “She doesn’t usually like anyone. Not even Matt, and he’s like, the most likeable person I know.”

“Matt?” Andrew asks, with badly stifled curiosity.

“My best friend,” Neil explains. “I think.”

“You think?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never had a best friend before,” Neil huffs.

Andrew is silent, and Neil finishes the cigarette.

Then he takes a deep breath and says: “My mother died when I was sixteen.”

Those first words crack something open, and the next ones come a little easier after that. Andrew offers some of his own history in exchange, and then they lie in the darkness, weighed down by the truths they just shared, and wait for the debris to settle.

“Thank you,” Neil whispers at last, “for coming to the cemetery with me.”

Andrew doesn’t say anything for a long while. Then he touches Neil’s ankle and asks if he can kiss him there, and Neil’s brain stalls out for a moment.

He pokes and prods himself for an answer. The “yes” floats up from the depths like something long submerged, washed clean and smooth by the years. He can’t remember if he’s ever been kissed. Certainly not by his parents, and definitely not by the girl that he went on his one infamous date with.

Andrew’s mouth is warm and chapped and Neil feels the gentle scratch of it against his skin like a jolt directly to his nerves. It’s over before he knows it, though the echo of the touch remains ingrained in his skin like a tattoo.

xiii.

“Do you want to come over?”

Neil waits breathlessly, pressing his phone to his ear. Andrew gave him his number before he left on Friday, and Neil has spent all of Saturday in a daze, thinking about him.

“Okay,” Andrew says and hangs up.

He arrives on Neil’s doorstep with sandwiches and sticky s’mores chocolate cake from Renee’s. Peach winds around his legs, chittering away like she’s known him in a former life and is updating him on all the gossip he missed. Andrew nearly trips over her as he carries two mugs of tea to where Neil is sitting on his bed, touching up his nail polish, and Neil hides a smile in his sleeve.

“Looks like you have a fan,” he says, holding up a bottle of nail polish to the light. It’s not quite the shade of purple he wants today, but it’ll have to do.

Andrew grunts and sits on the bed, scooting up against the headboard. He watches as Neil reapplies his nail polish and his winged eyeliner. After another failed attempt at Neil’s underwear drawer, Peach is sulking in the bathroom sink, peering out at them through the open door. The shower drips steadily – Neil really needs to fix that soon – and the sky is scuffed denim blue beyond the skylight.

Neil picks up a tube of dark red lipstick and twirls it between his fingers.

“Can I?” he asks, holding it up cautiously. Andrew stares at it for so long Neil thinks he’s going to say no, but then he nods.

Neil scoots closer and uncaps the lipstick. He contemplates Andrew’s mouth – thin, flat, with the hint of a sarcastic twist just lurking out of sight. There’s a tiny mole or freckle tucked underneath his lower lip, and now that Neil is close enough he can see the blond stubble, sun-bleached and faint, and has to resist the temptation to run his fingers over it.

“Hold still,” he murmurs, loosely cupping Andrew’s jaw and nudging his chin up. Andrew doesn’t move a muscle as Neil paints his lips red, careful not to smudge beyond the contours. He smells like greenery and lipstick, and Neil can see the pale blue tracery of veins in his closed eyelids.

“Okay. Open your eyes.”

Andrew blinks and purses his lips, frowning slightly. Neil holds up a hand mirror so he can see.

“Suits you. Very kissable,” he smirks. He gets a red lipstick-print kiss to his ankle for his trouble that sends goosebumps down his spine.

“Do you have a weird foot fetish or are you going to kiss me up here as well?” Neil asks cheekily, tapping his mouth.

Andrew doesn’t need to be asked twice.

xiv.

Neil asks Thea to tattoo the lipstick print on his ankle.

“What’s this for?” Thea asks, baffled, when Neil shows her the design. Neil just smiles and rolls up his jeans.

He gets home late that night, and approximately five minutes after he steps out of his shoes there’s a cranky Allison outside his door demanding to be let in. She brings offerings of wine, fancy cheese and breadsticks, and rants about some guy she went on a date with while Neil stares into space and thinks about kissing Andrew.

“What’s up with you?” Allison asks, narrowing her eyes and pointing at him with a breadstick. “You’re awfully quiet. I expected at least one good roast out of you.”

“Nothing,” Neil says quickly. “Just tired from work.”

Allison snorts, making one of her curls bounce in the sudden huff of air.

“Fine, be like that. I’ll find out sooner or later.”

She pours more wine and Neil checks his phone under the table. Andrew has sent him a blurry picture of Pepper drooling in her sleep. He cups his smile in his palm and texts back, then carefully tucks his phone away and grabs the box of chocolates he’s stashed in a drawer specifically for when Allison comes over.

“So,” he says, grinning wide, “tell me about Renee.”

xv.

Andrew gives Neil a key.

It’s a copy of his apartment key, and it looks like it’s almost painful for him to let go of it, but he nearly crushes Neil’s fingers around it and then he sags a bit in relief.

Neil takes the key and gives him some space. He told Andrew that he based the key from his tattoo on his own apartment key, because that was the only one he had on him at the time but also because this apartment – this town, this life – is the first place he thinks he might stay. His key is like an anchor for him, and now he’s got two, weighing down his pocket as if to remind him that he’s really here, that he’s really real.

He spends the afternoon tracing the teeth of both keys until his skin has them memorised. His only customer is a big burly guy with a receding hairline who requests a cliché vintage heart tattoo with “Mom” written inside, and Neil feels a little queasy doing it because the anniversary of his mother’s death is coming up fast. This time of year it always feels like the spectre of her is more substantial, just one of many ghosts blending into the crowd of spirits haunting the land as Halloween approaches. She looks over his shoulder while he’s doing the outline of the letters, and Neil mentally tells her to get lost and grips the needle tighter in his hand.

Andrew actually has some customers of his own when Neil goes over to the flower shop later. It’s five minutes to closing time and Andrew looks like he’s going to bodily haul the two little old ladies out of his space if they stay even a second longer. Luckily for them, they leave just in time with two pots of giant orchids tucked under their arms each.

“Wow,” Neil says, peering over the counter at the rest of the orchids. There are dark, velvety purple ones, and a few orange ones that look like the glowing ends of a hundred cigarettes. “Those are massive. Did you just get them in today?”

“Cymbidium orchids,” Andrew huffs and glares at them like they’ve personally offended him.

“Need help locking up?” Neil asks, rocking on the balls of his feet. Andrew makes an indistinct sound and flaps his hand around before grabbing a bucket and a rag and wiping down the counter. Neil finds a second bucket and starts collecting stray scraps of greenery. He squints at the smudged windows and decides they need washing, and once he’s done climbing around on the window ledge and dripping soapy water all down his front Andrew has finished up as well.

“There,” Neil says. “Now your flowers will actually get some sunlight.”

“You’re wet,” Andrew mutters, reaching out a hand as if to touch Neil’s shirt where it clings to his torso but stopping at the last minute.

Neil picks the sponge out of the bucket and throws it at him.

It hits him on the shoulder, leaving a sizeable wet patch on the dark green fabric of his shirt.

“Guess we should both get changed now,” Neil grins. Andrew glowers at him and snatches up the bucket. While he rummages around in the back, Neil draws a quick sketch of the pineapple lily that Andrew got in yesterday; a large, ugly potted plant whose flowers look like unripe pineapples. It probably won’t make a good tattoo, but he’s fascinated by the strange shape, and his sketchbook has already started to fill up with random drawings that have nothing to do with his work anyway.

“Come on,” Andrew says, jingling his remaining keys as he unlocks the door that leads up to his apartment. Neil’s stomach feels warm at the thought that he has the same key, safely tucked away in his pocket, and that he might be allowed to use it in the future.

The wooden steps are narrow and creak loudly as Neil follows Andrew upstairs. The apartment itself is even smaller than Neil’s – just a single room with a bed, a squashy armchair in a corner, a bookshelf and a kitchenette. Several plants drip down from hanging pots and a few more are scattered over the windowsills and coffee table. Neil recognises a spiky aloe vera plant, soaking up the last dregs of sunlight.

Pepper is asleep in the unmade tangle of sheets, blankets and pillows on the bed. She lifts her head when they enter and makes a noise that seems to imitate the creaking stairs perfectly.

“Andrew, you need to oil your cat,” Neil jokes, burying his hands in the thick ruff of fur around her neck. Pepper purrs and headbutts him gently.

“Coffee?” Andrew asks, sounding a little creaky himself.

“Yeah,” Neil says. “Thanks.”

He sinks into the armchair – literally sinks; the thing nearly swallows him up, leaving just his legs poking out of the cushions. It’s the most comfortable piece of furniture Neil’s ever sat on and he can’t imagine ever leaving it again. The smell of coffee starts drifting through the apartment. Andrew opens the fridge, stares at its emptiness and snaps it closed again.

“Forgot to buy milk,” he mutters, fiddling around with a little sugar pot in the shape of a cactus. Neil isn’t sure what’s funnier – the thought that Andrew bought it for himself, or that someone gave it to him and he kept it.

“We could order food,” Neil suggests. His nail polish has already started to flake off and he picks at the ragged edges. Pepper jumps on the back of the armchair with a sound like a rusty wind-up toy and settles on a spot that already looks threadbare and covered in ginger and white cat hair.

Andrew comes over with two mugs of coffee. One of them says, “Sage against the machine,” while the other proudly boasts, “Elvis Parsley.”

“I didn’t realise you were such a dork,” Neil grins, taking the Parsley one. When Andrew isn’t quick enough to move out of his space, he hooks a finger around the collar of his shirt and pulls. “Can I kiss you?”

“My cousin keeps sending me this shit,” Andrew grumbles. His eyes are honey gold in the evening light, flecked with specks of mossy green.

“It’s okay,” Neil murmurs. “I like you anyway. So can I?”

Andrew leans in and kisses him first. He tastes like sweet coffee and smells faintly like aftershave and deodorant, and Neil can’t get enough of his mouth. He lets himself be pressed deeper into the armchair and sighs when Andrew climbs on his lap, carefully settling his weight on Neil’s legs. Neil’s finger is still hooked in Andrew’s collar and Andrew pries it loose and guides his hands to his shoulders. Neil, driven to distraction by Andrew’s tongue, can’t think of doing anything other than hold on.

By the time they part long enough for Neil to grope around for his mug, the coffee has gone lukewarm. He grimaces and is promptly soothed by another kiss, and another, and another. His lips feel sticky and his head is mush. He leans his forehead against Andrew’s and sucks in deep breaths, but he still feels giddy and winded.

“My brother is getting married,” Andrew murmurs, golden eyes fixed on Neil’s mouth.

“Uhuh,” Neil says, dazed.

“In April,” Andrew adds.

“Mm,” Neil makes.

“Will you go with me,” Andrew says, thumb rubbing slow circles just under Neil’s ear where his skin is especially sensitive and dipping in and out of a snarl of curls.

“Mhm,” Neil hums, leaning into the touch. “Oh. Yeah? You want me to be like, your plus one?”

Andrew doesn’t reply, just keeps looking at him.

“Yes,” Neil says again, just in case it wasn’t clear. “I’ll be your plus one.”

Andrew slides a little closer and kisses him again.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is appreciated!
> 
> UPDATE: [Here's the art by Lio](http://lio-zehel.tumblr.com/post/176947897460/its-my-birthday-and-my-friend-annawrites-wrote) to the fic, check out beautiful Andrew smooching Neil's ankle and a bonus Princess Peach with her hoard of undies!! :D Don't forget to like and reblog if you enjoy!


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